IT professionals scared stiff of ransomware

There are always plenty of security concerns causing furrowed brows of IT professionals, but a survey shows that it is ransomware that is causing the biggest headaches at the moment. A survey carried out by Spiceworks and published by Webroot found that 88 per cent of professionals had concerns about ransomware, while one third of those questioned had dealt with a ransomware attack first hand. By far the most common strategy for dealing with a device that has been maliciously encrypted is to simply wipe it.

Two-thirds expect the number of attacks to increase in the next year which is particularly concerning when you consider that two thirds of IT professionals know someone who has been affected by ransomware. Despite the threat and attempts to thwart the flow of ransomware with filtering, firewalls, and email scanning, just 44 per cent believe their current security set up is "somewhat effective".

Faced with a device that is encrypted by malware and held to ransom, 9 per cent of those surveyed would attempt to crack the encryption themselves, while 22 per cent would call in encryption experts. The importance of backing up does not seem to have filtered through to the hundreds of people questioned by Spiceworks; while 82 per cent of IT professional affected by ransomware would wipe the device in question, just 19 per cent would restore data from a backup.

It should come as no surprise that the internet is one of the most common sources of this type of malware, but email and social networks also feature high on the list. A worryingly small 31 per cent of IT admins have a specific strategy in place for dealing with ransomware attacks.